Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists said that when he obtained the documentation of the $22 million expenditure, a fretting Freedom of Information Act officer “noted with some exasperation” that it undoubtedly would result in “new” requests for information.

Aftergood noted: “From 2007 to 2012, the DIA spent $22 million on the activity, formally known as the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. It was apparently initiated at the behest of then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, with most of the funding directed to a Nevada constituent of his.”

The work included warp drives, invisibility cloaking and “other areas of fringe or speculative science and engineering.”

It was all intended to help develop ways to “track and identify threats from space,” the report said.

Reports previously were given to Congress but were publicly released only days ago under FOIA.

The DIA’s letter to Aftergood included documentation that was sent to the late Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and others early in 2018 explaining there were 38 “reports” that had been generated under the funding.

One of the titles was “Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion” and another was “Advanced Nuclear Propulsion for Manned Deep Space Missions.”